- Floating gardens are a solution.
- Cassava is a solution.
- Eco-fusion is a solution.
- Art is a solution.
- Crop wild relatives are a solution.
- Genebanks are a solution.
- Understanding the effect of agricultural commodities on forests is a solution.
- My agroecology is a solution, but not your agroecology.
- 2021 will be a solution.
- Long-term thinking is the solution.
Brainfood: Bird shit, Ancient Greece, Maize adaptation, Resistant peanut, Adaptive variation, Crop models, AA bananas, Wild wheat, Wild tomatoes, Switchgrass diversity, Phytosanitation, Rice breeding, Seeds 4 Needs double, Wild palm, Threatened biodiversity
- ‘White gold’ guano fertilizer drove agricultural intensification in the Atacama Desert from ad 1000. And maize was at the heart of it.
- What’s new during the first millennium BCE in Greece? Archaeobotanical results from Olynthos and Sikyon. Not maize, alas, but what you’d expect, plus pine and sesame.
- Local adaptation contributes to gene expression divergence in maize. Stress-response genes are the ones which have been selected. No word on whether any of them were important in the Atacama.
- Genotyping tools and resources to assess peanut germplasm: smut-resistant landraces as a case study. Ok, so it sounds like the resistant line that was previously used is virtually identical to an accession in the USDA collection.
- Do We Need to Identify Adaptive Genetic Variation When Prioritizing Populations for Conservation? No, but we’ll need it to prioritize use, surely?
- Incorporating Realistic Trait Physiology into Crop Growth Models to Support Genetic Improvement. We’ll need better growth models too.
- Wild to domesticates: genomes of edible diploid bananas hold traces of several undefined genepools. 3 of them, in fact, in both SE Asia and New Guinea.
- Evolution of the bread wheat D-subgenome and enriching it with diversity from Aegilops tauschii. Three lineages were involved in the hybridizations that led to bread wheat. Coincidence?
- De novo genome assembly of two tomato ancestors, Solanum pimpinellifolium and Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, by long-read sequencing. Thousands of genes not found in the cultivated crop, apparently.
- Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass. Introgression from the northern genepool (one of three) was really important in adaptation after the glaciers retreated. Gene duplication also involved in adaptation.
- Economic Studies Reinforce Efforts to Safeguard Specialty Crops in the United States. Where “safeguard” means “provide clean planting material.”
- Comparative analysis of genetic diversity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties cultivated in different periods in China. Diversity went up, then down, between the 1980s and the 2010s.
- Wheat Varietal Diversification Increases Ethiopian Smallholders’ Food Security: Evidence from a Participatory Development Initiative. Why the diversity in breeding programmes is important, and how farmer participation can help maintain it.
- The tricot citizen science approach applied to on-farm variety evaluation: methodological progress and perspectives. How to do the above.
- Biodiversity and conservation of Phoenix canariensis: a review. A wild relative in trouble, and what to do about it.
- Tropical and Mediterranean biodiversity is disproportionately sensitive to land-use and climate change. As can be seen from the above.
Brainfood: Corona, Restoration, Georeferencing, Bee decline, Mustard breeding, Banana seeds, Micronutrient decline, Potato micronutrients, GWAS, Trade, Deforestation alerts, Review method
- Rapid assessments of the impact of COVID-19 on the availability of quality seed to farmers: Advocating immediate practical, remedial and preventative action. Structural weaknesses ruthlessly exposed.
- Initial Investment in Diversity Is the Efficient Thing to Do for Resilient Forest Landscape Restoration. Spend the money on securing diverse seeds up front, you cheapskates. No word on what the effect of the pandemic.
- Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits. Right seeds, right species, right place, the right way. But save forests first.
- The impact of near-real-time deforestation alerts across the tropics. Getting alerts saves forests, especially in protected areas, but only in Africa.
- Integration of georeferenced and genetic data for the management of biodiversity in sheep genetic resources in Brazil. Travel 300 km for a genetically different sheep. I wonder if it’s the same for trees.
- Worldwide occurrence records suggest a global decline in bee species richness. 25% fewer species in GBIF in past 25 years. Yeah but there may be alternative explanations for that, as a bee taxonomist points out. Non-Twitter link available too.
- Investigating genetic relationship of Brassica juncea with B. nigra via virtual allopolyploidy and hexaploidy strategy. Wild relative could be used to synthesize some really cool mustards.
- Seed storage behavior of Musa balbisiana Colla, a wild progenitor of bananas and plantains – Implications for ex situ germplasm conservation. Orthodox, but difficult to regenerate.
- Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines. No evidence for systematic declines in micronutrient concentrations.
- A Study on the Biodiversity of Pigmented Andean Potatoes: Nutritional Profile and Phenolic Composition. Lots of diversity in micronutrients in traditional landraces. No word on temporal changes.
- Status and prospects of genome‐wide association studies in plants. Dissecting complex traits has never been easier, and is getting easier. It says here.
- A review of the interactions between biodiversity, agriculture, climate change, and international trade: research and policy priorities. Policy priorities? Increased recognition of international trade in biodiversity targets, goals, and policy; and increased communication of the impacts of food on biodiversity.
- The Impact of Diversified Farming Practices on Terrestrial Biodiversity Outcomes and Agricultural Yield Worldwide: A Systematic Review Protocol. Looking forward to this one.
Nibbles: Ube again, Ugandan coffee, USDA job, Genebank data, Transformation
- Still have no idea whether “ube” is a yam or sweetpotato.
- Uganda breeding its way to higher coffee production.
- Wanna help USDA collect germplasm?
- But what data are you gonna record on all that new stuff?
- Chatham House says change diets, protect nature and practice sustainable farming for a better food system. Gonna need genebanks in support of all those.
The economics of biodiversity includes genebanks?
It’s 600-odd pages, but the Dasgupta Review on The Economics of Biodiversity, out today, may turn out to be worth reading in full, if these results of quick searches are anything to go by:
…widespread use of individual strains could deepen problems caused by the lack of genetic diversity in crops; introducing resistance into a wide variety of cultivars would counter this.
…future crop security in agriculture and industry is reliant on maintaining plant genetic diversity (Jump, Marchant, and Peñuelas, 2009). Another example of keeping our options open is the development of seed banks. Seed banks store the living genetic diversity of plants, in the form of seeds, to enable future use. Various types of seed bank exist, to support different sectors and interventions, e.g. agriculture, forestry, restoration and conservation. They provide a secure and relatively low-cost method of conserving a large amount of genetic material in a relatively small space.
…
The Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change Project was a global initiative covering 24 countries that focused on the seeds of wild relatives of 29 of the world’s most important crop species (Castañeda-Álvarez et al. 2016). Participants in this project have conserved 242 taxa of crop wild relatives. These collections will be used to identify traits of value in crop breeding, such as tolerance of heat, drought, salinity and waterlogging, resistance to pests and diseases, resistance to root rot, and yield.
…
Sustainable intensification seeks to use contemporary methods to increase crop yields. For example, maintaining soil fertility, improving water use efficiency and reducing chemical inputs can be achieved through zero tillage or intercropping with two or more crops. Other approaches include plant breeding for temperature and pest tolerance, creating bio-controls for crop pests and pathogens, and reducing fossil fuel use in agriculture…
In the meantime, read the hot takes from The Guardian and Kew.
LATER: